October 17, 2010

Stars beat St. Louis in shootout, 3-2

After a 3-2 shootout win over St. Louis at American Airlines Center, the Stars are proving they are resilient. They found themselves down 2-0 3:48 into the game and then didn't give up another goal.

Kari Lehtonen came up with 41 saves, and yet he couldn't do it alone. He left some rebounds hanging out and had a few pucks trickle through holes, and his defensemen were there to clean things up when they needed to be.

It was a hectic, sloppy, chaotic, beautiful mess.

Brad Richards now has nine points (2 goals, 7 assists) his best start ever to a season.

Richards and linemates James Neal and Loui Eriksson (one goal and one assist each) came up huge and made the most of their scoring opportunities.

Meanwhile, the Stars met the physical challenge handed out by the Blues and finished with 49 hits (to 28 for the Blues). Nicklas Grossman had seven hits (he also had two really foolish penalties in the third period), while Steve Ott, James Neal and Brenden Morrow had six hits apiece.

The Stars also won the battle of the faceoff circle, 34-22 (61 percent) and that was huge at times. Steve Ott won 10-of-15 (67 percent).

Loui Eriksson had his shootouot attempt trickle under the pads of Ty Conklin and it was called a goal under review. That became huge, as it allowed Mike Ribeiro the chance to finish things off before the Blues even got their third shot. Dallas is now 4-for-6 in shootouts 66.6 percent) after going 14-for-75 (18.7 percent) last season. That ranked them 29th in the league in shootout shooter success.